Urban Indigenous health across the lifecourse

Such is the importance of research in this field, that our researchers not only contribute to community knowledge, but are also known to act as public advocates and ambassadors for their topic of passion on a national platform.

Achieving better outcomes across the life-course entails considering pregnancy and childbirth, right through to care in older age. It brings together the physical, psychological and cultural components necessary for improved Indigenous health.

Recently, COVID has demonstrated the importance of protecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from all manner of threats, whether they be infectious diseases or the negative consequences of modern lifestyle and diet, for example.

An important part of what researchers must assess surrounds the barriers to Indigenous people accessing care or how new initiatives can be integrated with the existing Western framework.

Poche Centre for Indigenous Health

Brings together Indigenous and health expertise across the University, and works collaboratively with Indigenous community organisations and health providers, on improving health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Professor James Ward

Professor James Ward is a Pitjantjatjara and Narungga man, an infectious diseases epidemiologist and a national leader in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research. He is currently the Director of the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health and Professor within the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland.

Dr Carmen Parter

Carmen is a proud descendent of the Darumbal and Juru clans of the Birra Gubba Nation of Queensland with South Sea Islander heritage – Tanna Island of Vanuatu. Carmen's PhD explored how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture can be implemented and incorporated in a public health policy instrument like the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Implementation Plans.

Dr Alize Ferrari

Lead researcher on the Queensland Urban Indigenous Mental Health Survey (QUIMHS), which aims to quantify the number of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people in South East Queensland with a mental disorder, the mental health services they use, and the barriers to accessing care.

Dr Emma Crawford

Works in the fields of infant-mother care, Indigenous health and education and asylum seekers' mental wellbeing (with adults and children). She has a strong interest in innovative, evidence based, complex interventions that address individual and systemic health issues, occupational therapist and researcher.

Associate Professor Steve Bell

Steve is an applied health and social researcher with 20 years experience of qualitative, participatory and ethnographic research on sexual, reproductive and maternal health, HIV and other infectious diseases.

Meet some of our researchers